


Drown With Me, Darling

by minerrvas



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby being a murky mermaid!, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Alternate Universe - Pirates of the Caribbean Fusion, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Humans and mermaids are enemies but Kabby don't give a shit, Marcus being a sexy sailor!, Mermaid & Sailor, Mermaids, Reincarnation, Sailor & Mermaid, Telepathy, They basically just go cuddle amidst corals, While everybody pretends not to be pissed off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 12:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10360125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minerrvas/pseuds/minerrvas
Summary: When Abigail and her fellow mermaids go hunting for human meat at a shipwreck, she doesn't expect to find a sailor she... actually doesn't want to eat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I recently got out of an annoying phase of writer's block that lasted for months (for several private reasons), and the fact I'd started this fic even before that made it easy to finish. This should help with getting to work on my unfinished projects (hopefully - but hope is everything, right?). I'm so glad to be able to post this now since mermaids are my absolute cake. If you need music to listen to while reading, I recommend "Mermaids" by Hans Zimmer for the beginning and "Shenandoah" by Hayley Westenra for the end. Enjoy!

The ocean usually is a quiet place, to those who don’t live in it. It’s the dark blue mystery that instills both assuaging peace and indescribable fear in humans, draws them out onto the glittering surface and back again. Then, there are those who live _on_ the ocean. Sailors, pirates, all of them know of the dangers floating beneath the yielding waves, dangers that aren’t quite as willing to yield once they present themselves. Of course, those dangers are only dangerous to the humans.

To those who live _in_ the water, _humans_ are the danger. Invaders, but also a delicious source of meat once their defenses have been broken down.

Abigail thinks human defense mechanisms are _ridiculously_ easy to break.

All it takes is a soft, well-placed smile, dark eyes filled with the most alluring, most sensual of mysteries, gentle, scaly hands that promise the world and everything beneath… as well as firm fingernails, sharp fangs and an avid, trained tail to drag them down into the dark depths with her, all the while pressing the vow of death onto their jagged lips with her oceanic own.

Her senses growl with hunger as she dives through the blue deep, slapping the water with her black-blue tail in strong, powerful movements to get to her target as quickly as possible. The other mermaids’ signals ring out to her through the underwater waves, echoing in her skull. _The ship isn’t far, the storm has put it to a halt. The water smells of humans._ Abigail looks behind her, her brown, flowing hair falling into her vision for a moment as she continues to glide fast through the water, giving her pack a curt nod. She has picked up the human scent as well. It is strong.

They will feast tonight.

As soon as the underside of the ship, or its wreck, comes into sight, they are quick to recognize the numerous bodies floating on the surface. The surface itself isn’t glittering like it always does when the sun is shining onto their home from the realm above – the storm must be a terrific one, for everything out there, out of their reach, seems dark. Terrific for Abigail’s kind, that is. She speaks to her pack, sings a melody which are words to none but the water spirits. _Easy prey. Be cautious and efficient…_

_Attack!_

Her command echoes throughout the waves as dozens of tails speed up to carry their owners to the surface like undersea rockets, long strands of seaweed in their hands, leaving sharp trails of bubbles behind. Abigail feels the slap of air on her soaked face once her head comes up between the brutal waves, her chestnut eyes seeing the sky marred by dark clouds. She doesn’t dwell on the feeling of raindrops hitting her face, the might of the shower resembling the small sibling of a waterfall and an even smaller one of the ocean, for she has hunting to do. She may be their healer and not be too keen on being as brutal as their species is made out to be, but that doesn’t mean she has no appetite now and then - killing, although she tries to repress it because it doesn’t feel quite _right_ , is a natural instinct of her kind.

In this case, it is more taking than hunting, since no enemy soul seems to have the strength left to flee from their hunter. There are several bodies being carried by the water, most half-sunken already by the storm. Her instincts tell her that bleeding out, with the force that is a mermaid’s fangs, will be much quicker than drowning. Something else inside her tells her they could still be saved.

When instinct takes over again, she knows that their souls are lost to nature’s forces. Every sailor’s soul is. It would be foolish of them not to take advantage of that.

Wanting to make sure all of her people have found a body to satisfy their cravings with, Abigail scans the crowd between the crashing waves. Peeking out from beneath the surface she sees Diana begin to hug a dark-haired, bearded sailor in her death embrace. Through the pouring rain she can recognize the heaviness of his eyelids, how he already is half-unconscious but still putting up a struggle with his weak arms, strong and defined yet weary beneath the white material of his soaked shirt.

The struggle is in vain. It always is.

The struggle to recognize the man, however… is not.

A glint of recognition, then a powerful lightning filled with memories of a forgotten past flashes in Abigail’s brain, akin to the storm raging above the waves, and her scaly throat constricts painfully. Her hand forms a fist around her seaweed and she snatches it out from beneath the dark surface, letting it snap into Diana’s direction like a whip with a strong twist of her slippery wrist. The embrace between the other mermaid and the man is broken as the seaweed latches onto the former’s arm, making Diana look to her pack leader with a shocked look in her dilated, hungry eyes. Her pupils shrink threateningly as she lets out a hissing sound, the fangs already out and visible between her lips.

“That one is mine,” Abigail calls through the stormy winds, her voice resembling a fierce hiss itself. Diana’s momentary confusion makes way to resentment before she dives away from the limp sailor with a decisive slap of her tail. The healer doesn’t waste any more time before swimming to the sailor in a straight line, the black and blue scales of her tail made to shine by the lightning as her body slides beneath the stormy surface.

Abigail can feel her heart thumping wildly in the watery depths as one of her scaly hands grasps the sailor’s arm from below, slapping her tail one more time so her head breaks through the surface and she can _finally_ look at him properly from up close. His eyes are fluttering, almost closed, but she can still recognize their rich shade of brown, his dark hair is completely wet and swimming on the surface where it’s long enough, but she can still recognize its curly structure… The dark storm doesn’t make it difficult for her to recognize his features - she already knows them by heart. This particular sailor could never leave her heart, after all. In any universe. He will always be bound to it by her very own arteries, veins and muscles. He is in her _blood_. Extensive blood loss means death.

...Of course. She was _meant_ to find him.

Meant to find him in this very storm.

Abigail is the only one to kiss her sailor. Their lips are both marked with the distinctive taste of salt as she presses hers onto his. It doesn’t involve tongues, merely soft flesh, and she can feel him moving slightly beneath her touch. Her right arm slides around his torso, getting a hold of his body and gripping it with moderate strength before her lips slowly lift from his, having worked their vital magic. They are still tingling.

She realizes she has missed his lips. She has missed _every_ part of him. She doesn’t realize how she couldn’t have missed him all along. There were flickers sometimes, yes, broken memories, but not enough to really remember - lightning without thunder…

But it doesn’t matter now. Now Abigail remembers _everything._

That’s why she’s the only one to bring her sailor down to the ocean ground _alive._

He instinctively starts to struggle as she starts to drag him beneath the surface into the dark deep blue, to where everything is much calmer than the storm raging above in the sky. His movements are sluggish and lack coordination, but his half-closed, foggy eyes betray the fear that drives him. _He’s afraid she’s going to drown him._ Either he hasn’t heard the stories about a mermaid’s kiss, the one that keeps lucky men alive underwater, or his mind is too much of a mess right now to concentrate.

Either way, she would do _everything_ to protect him from drowning. To protect herself from losing him again.

So Abigail continues diving down, unfazed by his fears. Her arms gripping his middle are strong as they fall into darker depths, caught in an embrace, together. At some point, he completely ceases struggling. His arms and legs become limp. The feeling of his warm heart beating through the icy water makes her tail slap faster.

Around her, the other mermaids are dragging just-as-limp bodies down with them, though she knows all of them will likely remain bodies - only bodies, at that, without souls, stolen by the creatures of the deep, dark waters. It’s no surprise her kind is so feared and treated with caution - where sharks, perhaps, are honourable knights, the women with tails are ruthless assassins. And they wear that title well.

While the others are swimming to the area of feasting with their food, Abigail signals them to start without her, finish without her. She’s their leader, but she isn’t royal, she isn’t their queen, isn’t worshipped as such. She’s glad for it, really. She much prefers healing over commanding, as it gives her more flap room - to do things the others might frown upon, like she’s doing _now_ \- but she was chosen. Doesn’t mean she cannot allow herself a liberty here and there.

She swims to the colourful corals nearby, where there is plenty of seaweed to shield them from sight and yet give them enough light from above so he can still see when he awakens. Abigail doesn’t know from what exactly they might need shielding, but perhaps the _man_ in her arms might find it more favourable to wake up in a friendlier area than in the middle of a swarm of a species he has been taught to fear and kill on sight. It occurs to her only after a few moments he might regard her as something that wants to eat him as well, but she knows he’s too worn down from the storm and being dragged down to the ocean ground to _try_ anything.

She fiercely hopes he’ll recognize her. She hopes he’ll remember the kiss. The kiss she gave him today, and the thousands of others they’d shared in past lives.

_She so brutally remembers now._

How could she not have known he’s been living in the same world as her all along? Then again, during the dozens of times they endured this, remembering was a struggle as well. Whatever this vicious cycle is, it isn’t kind to their memories.

A few fish swim past her head, but her eyes remain solely focused on his striking features, entranced by the way he seems to be waking up. Slowly at first, then violently once he realizes who - or what - is in front him, around him, holding him. He tries to wrench himself free, but to no avail. She won’t let him. Not now that she’s found him.

Abigail puts her scaly hands upon his ears, covering them, ignoring his panicked, terrorized stare. She knows how she must look to him - a sea ghoul, a devil fish, skin transformed into something thin and glittering now that she’s underwater, all teeth now fangs, her eyes black holes. This form perhaps shouldn’t be the first one he has to see, but she can’t risk finding a quiet place at the shore and then being captured by humans after all. She can convince only _one_ human to listen to her without spearing her first, and that is the sailor in her lap.

_Marcus._

His pupils blow wider, his adam’s apple bobbing once he hears his name reverberate in his skull, gifted to him through the connection between his ears and her hands. Her cold lips have worked all the magic for that to be possible now - communicating, speaking, finding each other’s minds. They’ve waited enough.

He’s speechless at first, clearly trying to process what he’s currently experiencing - and if it resembles anything she’s had to process, he has to be hit with an avalanche of memories about right now. So Abigail gives him time, softly stroking the chilly skin next to his ears and hoping it gives him comfort. (She can’t be sure. Her skin consists of shining scales right now, after all, and she doubts any of the lovers he’s had had skin like _that._ )

-She thinks of them as lovers already. But, really, can they be anything else but, now that they’ve found each other in the storm? She dearly hopes not. Marcus has never changed his mind in their past lives.

As soon as he seems to be halfway _there_ , he opens his mouth, but Abigail softly shakes her head.

_Speak to me in your mind. Actively. I’ll hear it, my love._

_I'm not drowning. I can hear both a song and mere spoken words,_ his mind blurts out, and her mouth opens, corners curling up in delight at his eagerness. _Now I can hear you laughing. But you can't actually laugh down here, can you?_

It’s true. If water had been made for something like laughter, she would have laughed her most beautiful song right now, because _they’re together again_ , they’ve rediscovered each other so many times it’s almost become _banal_ and the first thing Marcus does is comment on the sounds that transfer from her mind to his, _of course he does_. It’s all so captivatingly familiar even amidst wholly new surroundings. They’re in an ocean and she must look like a monster to him. Yet, bodies may deceive each other, but their souls never will. It’s something they’ve come to realize rather early on - nothing could keep them apart.

Not even death.

_No, I can’t. But I’m still very happy to see you._ Worried lines appear on his face and Abigail realizes the voice in his head must sound like it’s choking, for there very much is a tightness in her chest that can’t derive from the underwater pressure. She shakes her head again, grimacing slightly but not actually crying. Black holes can’t produce moisture; a mermaid’s tears don’t exist in the blue depths. Yet she still is wearing a smile, for him, moving one scaly hand to stroke his cheek and leaving the other at his ear. _We have met again._

Marcus doesn’t respond immediately, not out of hesitation, but rather to give the moment depth, to make it more than a moment.

When you realize your bond transcends mortality, you stop giving a thought to time. You have eternity. You are forever.

_We have,_ he answers softly.


End file.
